Shut down! ILWU shuts down West Coast ports

As in ALL West Coast ports.

It wasn't over higher wages or more benefits but to protest the war in Iraq, and in solidarity with immigrants' rights.

It can be a fucking bitch when Americans act like Americans.

Please click on the headline for more.

Note: Headline links to source.

The Glorious Future that American Unions Walked Away From

Ya want to know why trade unions are dying? Well, you came to the right place.

BECAUSE THEY FUCK THEIR MEMBERS!

A couple times I went to my union for assistance and it was almost identical with dealing with the corporate powers. The unions are so incestuous with the corporations they can't give a shit about you.

Unions in America have been in a decline for over 60 years. Union membership has dropped from almost 35% of all workers in 1945 to less than 15% today. In fact, union membership has declined to almost exactly the same percentage as it was in 1930 before FDR took power and encouraged the growth of unions. The first crucial battle the unions lost came after FDR died, when over Truman's veto the Taft-Hartley Act was passed in 1947.

Unions are political. Without cowering before the companies, they become neutralized. In both cases I took to the union I had, what I considered irrefutable evidence, including scientific measurements, and the union said, in affect, we think the company is right.

But enough of fucking sour grapes, huh?

Via The Agonist.

Drown Union Reps In Paperwork

Very interesting story. Especially the last paragraph which should really discourage union participation.

One thing I find extremely interesting is I have worked for companies who, purportedly in an effort to avoid envy among employees, demanded workers keep their income/pay secret from other employees. How secret is your info if its posted on the internets tubes?

By Isaiah J. Poole on August 16, 2007 - 1:00pm.

A federally-imposed reporting requirement goes into effect today that is a transparent attempt by the Bush administration to intimidate union activists and hamper union activity. The tactic is to do to unions what conservatives complain liberals do to businesses: Bog them down in needless paperwork.

The rule would require thousands of shop stewards and others union volunteers to file a detailed financial disclosure form to the Department of Labor, which would then post the form on the Internet. The form in question is known as the "LM-30," formally the Labor Organization Officer and Employee Report. The final ruling was published in the Federal Register on July 2.

The nine-page form, which is so long the Office of Management and Budget estimates it would take at least two hours to fill out, is ostensibly intended to help union members ascertain if their representatives have financial conflicts of interest that would affect their ability to represent their members.

But the form is already required of union leaders. The problem is that the new reporting requirement reaches far beyond people who are even in a position to be "corrupt union bosses" - the straw men and women the conservatives behind this rule are trying to knock down - in an effort to make rank-and-file people think twice before helping their fellow workers file grievances or do other union-related activity. And, bear in mind, the rule is not a response to union members demanding more information; in fact, as the department concedes in the Federal Register, 300 comments about the reporting rule were received from unions or union members, "most of whom were critical of all or parts of the proposal."

Union members who do union work while on company time would have to report the amount of their salary they received while doing union business.

Just another low for the Bush administration. What weasels.

(read more)

H/T Rick Perlstein